A Chicago court has ordered three United States Islamic organisations and a man accused of bankrolling the Palestinian group Hamas to pay US$156 million ($224 million) in damages over the death of a US-born student, David Boim, gunned down in the West Bank in 1996.

Lawyers for the student's parents, who brought the suit, had said in advance that no money might ever be collected, but the real point of the case was to set a precedent for going after "the domestic enablers of terrorism".

The case was brought under a 1992 US law that permits victims of terrorism to seek civil damages against groups deemed responsible for such acts.